Spoilers: Starts being AU after the Sasuke vs. Deidara battle in that he lives, and shit like that.A/N: OR, How To Write An Epic Fic In A Oneshot. (22 pages of Word. Whoa.) Fallacy is at fault for the initial idea, and the times she pulled me out of a tight spot with this fic. Allory Shannon
also gets a dedication, because she'd the best fucking Deidara I've had
the pleasure of rping with, so there. I have so many things I'd like to
say about this fic. But I won't. I'll let the fic speak for itself.
Read on. (Please mind the rating, though. Seriously.)P.S. Unbeta-ed.
Seriously? If you see a mistake, something that's spelled wrong, I
don't give a damn, man. I just spent two days writing 22 pages, okay?

GrandeurEveryone aspires to better things. It's how the human mind works. The question is, how far will they go to achieve them?

To
be completely honest, Sakura had always found explosions to be
something beautiful to watch from a safe distance. She wasn't sure this
qualified as a safe distance, but it was an explosion. Maybe it
didn't wipe out entire cities, but it destroyed. It took whatever was
in its path, and the only thing in its destructive, burning path, was
her.

------

"The rest of the team will be expecting
us by now," Sakura muttered to Pakkun as she followed the dog further
along the way. "We'd settled a meet-up in five minutes, because Naruto
thinks he found something, and I don't want to be la—Pakkun. Pakkun,
are you listening?" she snapped, a bit annoyed and seriously unsure of
whether the ninja-dog had actually an idea of where they were. If he'd
led her all the way to the outskirts of the village just to find a good
tree to pee on, she'd kill hi—

"His scent is here."

—okay,
she wouldn't kill him, then! "Here where?" Sakura asked, watching along
the narrow road which ended between two trees. A dangerous path. She
wondered if she should call the rest of the team first.

But then it happened.

First, the blinding light: white, and red, and orange, and fire.
Second, the noise, that she didn't hear because her heart had stopped
beating, her lungs had stopped pumping air, and she just stood there,
in the forest, looking up at the sky, entranced. Third, a whoosh of
hot, too hot, air blowing her hair back, making her take two steps
backwards, her stomach twisting in a knot. And then the smell of
sulphur. "What is that…?" she asked, as the trees bent slightly in the
direction of the wind, and the hot air made her choke slightly.

She'd
never seen an explosion like that in the fifteen years of life she'd
had. What worried the shit out of her was that the place where it came
from was the place at where Pakkun had indicated Sasuke had been last.

Without thinking it twice, Sakura forced her legs to move forward, picking up pace until she was running, running, don't let him be dead, not now when we were so close, gods.
The smell of burnt flesh became more obvious, the nearer she got to the
place of the explosion. It was a clearing, or it had been a clearing,
or maybe it had been a forest turned clearing by the explosion—the
location didn't matter. What mattered was that—

"Oh my God…"

—that
in the middle of the scorched clearing lay a body. And she knew who it
was. Without words—she could say nothing, not when her voice was gone,
not when she could barely even breathe—she ran towards the body, arms
and legs moving on their own accord, because she could think straight.
She crashed to the ground a few feet beside him, tears gathering in her
eyes at the smell, and on her knees she moved the remaining distance,
until she was near him.

"His smell was here," Pakkun said somewhere behind her.

Sakura
interpreted that as 'the burned body you see was once him', and without
delay, her hands moved. Hovered over his body, she channelled chakra to
her hands, and set to work.

She had to heal him. She'd heal
him, because he still had a pulse. And when he was healed, she'd tie
him up and drag him the hell back to Konoha, where he could heal, and
apologize to Naruto, and find himself a wife and actually be normal
again. She'd heal him, heal his wounds and wait for him to breathe
again, for his hair to grow again, for his wounds to lead way to new
skin, smooth and soft and masculine. And when he, Sasuke, the man she
was healing—

Wait.

The man she was healing choked
out a gasp as he returned to consciousness. Sakura could devise
pronounced cheekbones, and thin lips, a straight nose, and a masculine
jaw line.

Hold on.

Masculine jaw line? The last she remembered, Sasuke hadn't developed a masculine jaw-line, and she was an expert at human anatomy so she'd know this shit.

Who the hell am I healing?

Her patient opened his eyes. Blue. Shit. Definitely not Sasuke.
So that only left one answer: who she healed had been Sasuke's
opponent. It was already too late to stop healing, and Sakura couldn't
just let him die there. Other medic-nins might've, but she had
always had a sense of humanity that far surpassed her sense of duty.
Which did not mean she healed him fully.

"Who are you?" she
asked, pulling completely away from the man. She sat on the ground, her
hand inside her pouch, fingers wrapped around a knife. If he attacked,
she'd show no mercy.

Unfortunately, the man, it seemed, was
more worried with his situation than with his saviour. He sat up from
the ground, lifting his burnt hands and pulling a face. "Those'll take a
bitch of a time to heal, hn," he muttered to himself. Then he palmed
his skull, now devoid of hair. It seemed that being bald wasn't
pleasing him one bit. "That'll take even longer. Stupid Uchiha
brat and his stupid-ass logic. When the shitting hell did electricity
start to win over the ground, huh? Science's just not the same as it
used to be."

Her brain barely had the time to register the name
'Uchiha' and 'brat' before making the connection, and forcing Sakura
into action. Said action was, inevitably, to pull out a kunai, and
launch herself at the man she'd just healed. Caught in his grumbling,
he didn't notice her until she was pinning him to the ground, her kunai
poised precariously under his chin. One wrong action, and his throat
would be slit.

"What, you heal me to kill me, hm?" he asked,
grinning dangerously. Or it would've been dangerous, if his lips hadn't
been burned, and he hadn't looked so damn tired. "What do you want?"

"Sasuke," was the only word she said, glaring a bit more, her blade pressed a bit harder against his skin.

"Hopefully
dead, yeah?" he answered, and his grin turned manic. "Like I would've
been, if it weren't for you. Thanks a lot, princess. Now…" She had no
time to react. He was on her in two seconds. Strong hands gripped her
wrists, and using his advantage when it came to weight—plus the element
of surprise—he rolled them over, bringing himself on top. "Now," he
continued, two of his fingers wrapped around her kunai. "How can I ever
thank you for that, hnn?"

Sakura didn't answer, a pure look of
rage on her face as she took in his words. 'Hopefully dead'. Dead.
Dead. "He can't be dead."

"Are you still on that? Did you see the explosion? What makes you think anyone'd survive it, hm? That was my most potential, perfect work of art ever. It's a miracle I survived it…or maybe…it's your fault I did."

"He
can't be dead," was her murmured answer. She felt herself losing will
to fight, the kunai nearly slipping from her hands. Her gut twisted,
and her breath slowed down, and suddenly she was thrown in a world with no Sasuke to rescue. No emotionless former-teammate to drag home. What would Naruto say? What would Kakashi say? What would she do?

"Oi, oi, focus on the fight here, yeah," the man on top of her drawled.

"There
is no fight," she said in a monotonous tone. From a distant part in her
mind, Inner!Sakura supplied that she sounded like a broken doll right
there, and reminded her: We were supposed to never sound like that again. That was right. She'd made a promise to herself. She would not give up. "You killed him…you killed Sasuke-kun…"

"It was either him or me, yeah. Bastard deserved it, if you ask m—"

"QUIET!"
When Sakura moved, it was to kick him off of her. Her legs firmly
planted on the ground beneath, her hands moving back then slamming into
his chest, she sent him flying back a few feet, crashing into a tree.
"You bastard," she growled, picking herself up from the ground, and launching herself at him, fist aiming for his face.

So
what if she'd just healed him up? The bastard deserves it—whoever this
bastard is—for killing Sasuke. No. Not killing, because it was Sasuke, dammit, and Sasuke's didn't just die.
Her fist impacted with the tree behind his head, smashing it to pieces.
He, a few feet away, having reacted quickly enough to retreat, was
looking mildly impressed. "Do that again," he said, grinning from
one ear to another. (Before the explosion, he had probably been pretty,
Sakura rationalised, and then hated herself for doing it.)

"What
the hell are you talking about?" she asked, running at him, twisting in
mid-air and aiming a kick at his head. He moved away quicker than she
could see, and her heal impacted with the ground, making it crumble.

His
eyes widened in an insane way, the grin matching said insanity as he
repeated: "That, yeah? It's amazing…you destroy without explosives.
Very nice, yeah…"

Sakura huffed and looked at him as if he'd
grown a second head. Was it normal to do this during a fight? Or was it
just this weirdo? "Look, idiot, I'm trying to kill you here, will you
be serious?"

He flashed her another grin, and then he
was gone. "How's this for serious?" he asked a moment later, when it
became quite obvious to Sakura that no, he wasn't just happy to see
her, and that yes, that was the tip of a kunai digging into her
back. His left arm circled her neck, and brought her back and up
against his chest. "Listen, yeah," he started, speaking directly into
her ear. "Since you healed me, I won't kill you this time, yeah? Don't push your luck too much, though. You might've killed Sasori-danna, but I'm a harder enemy to defeat."

And then it clicked. Who he was. Who she'd healed. The only thought she had about it was: fuck.
She'd just stopped that madman Kakashi and Naruto had fought against
from dying. She'd just saved an Akatsuki. There must've been a big,
huge level in Hell reserved just for her, for this stunt.

"I'm
gonna count to three, and then I'll go, yeah. You'd do well not to
remind anyone about this meeting, princess. Just a friendly advice."

"Screw you."

"Heh. Maybe some other time, yeah? I'm a traditional guy, date and flowers first."

"Just. Ugh."

"I
love the way you talk to me, hmm," he said, grinning against her ear.
She scrunched her nose. He still smelled like burned flesh. She didn't
answer again, settling instead on boiling with rage. "So, then,
princess. We'll be seeing each other."

"I hope not."

"You
know what they say, yeah? Hope's the last thing you lose." And then he
pressed one spot at the back of her neck, and she crumbled to the
ground, unconscious.

-----

Twenty minutes later, Sakura joined the rest of her teammates.

"Sakura-chan, you're late," Kakashi said, looking at her as if he didn't believe it himself.

Sakura
waved a hand that had been previously covered in ash and blood, and
said: "I know. Pakkun thought he'd caught his scent." It was needless
to specify which person she referred to.

Sakura's eyes flashed with pain for a second. 'Hopefully dead, yeah.' 'Hopefully dead'. She shared a look with the pug near her feet, then looked at Naruto. "He had mistaken the scent for someone else."

"Aw, man," Naruto grumbled, pouting. "Let's keep looking."

They
had a five minutes break, and then set off in a different direction.
"What'll you do about that guy, Sakura?" Pakkun asked her.

She was too tired to argue about moral etiquette with a freaking dog, so: "I don't know," she answered. And that was that.

-----

She
hadn't expected to hear from him again. Like. Ever. Honest to gods, she
could've lived her life peacefully, not knowing if he lived, or not.
The crazy bastard.

So months, years passed with no news of
anything concerning him, and Sakura took the wisest conclusions. He was
dead. Much joy had been involved when she'd reached that conclusion, to
be honest. Because she'd never have to think about how she'd saved an
Akatsuki member, and he would never see her again. Plus, that reduced
the guilt to a minimum.

The only time she'd directly thought
of him had been a few days after their encounter, when she found out
that Sasuke was alive, and right then, her thoughts of him had been
something like: 'Hah! Take that, you bald-headed crazy bastard.'

So it came as a surprise when, one day, three years later, she found a letter in her mail.

'Dear princess,

Thought
I'd forgotten all about you, yeah? Thought wrong. I'm sure you've
missed me terribly during these three years we've been apart, and trust
me when I say, I've missed you too. Our last meeting was rather
violent. Let's make the next one a bit nicer, yeah?

Love,
D.'

"Yeah right. You wish," she muttered to the letter, before crunching it in her fist and threw it in the bin.

Afterwards,
she visited the post office in Konoha and asked—more like shook within
an inch of life—a mailman who the hell had given him that letter.
Apparently, no-one knew how the letter had arrived. But later that
evening, Sakura went back home and found a clay bird on her desk, with
a tiny post-it note attached to it: 'It's impolite to throw away the letter I tried so hard to write, yeah.'

Sakura
stared at the bird for ten seconds, before throwing it out the open
window. "COME NEAR ME AND DIE, YOU FREAK!" she shouted fiercely out in
the night.

On the streets below, three men cowered in fear and
made a pact to never take a walk on that street again. When the clay
bird exploded a few feet from them, they made a pact to never take
walks again, period.

-----

Many things had happened in the three years between their meeting in the forest, and the letter in her mail box.

They
had found Sasuke. They'd found him, and fought him again, and he'd
tried to kill them again. He'd been aiming the sword at Naruto, running
towards his brother-best-friend-teammate-whatever, his eyes cold, and
blank and emotionless; and Sakura hadn't been able to stand it, so she
jumped in front of Naruto. Sasuke's sword pierced her three inches
below from where Sasori's blade had, long before. It had hurt the same.
But she'd yanked him close, and punched his face so hard that she broke
his nose and three teeth. Then she instructed Naruto to 'tie him the
hell up, we're taking him back by force if needed'. Naruto had obeyed,
confessing that that had been the scariest he'd ever seen of Sakura.
She'd healed herself, and dragged Sasuke's sorry ass all the way back
to Konoha.

Before his trials, she'd visited his prison cell,
and broke his nose again, for 'everything you've put us through, you
bastard, and don't expect me to forgive you for trying to kill Naruto!'.
His trial passed, and Sasuke, emotionless, cold, blank, but most
importantly brotherless Sasuke, stayed.

Sakura wouldn't
visit him again for two months, picking a long mission in Suna as means
of escaping the need to deal with a friendship that would never be the
same. When she returned, she realised Sasuke had never really thought
of her as his friend. Naruto and him were friends again, or at least,
they were back to bickering incessantly, again, which could qualify as
friends, of course. Sakura wasn't included in the group.

Time
passed. Time usually did those sort of quirky things like passing
slowly when you were depressed, and very quickly when you were happy.
She'd watched her friends and teammates go through loss, and love, and
angst, and loss, while she stayed on the sidelines, empty. Sometimes
she tried to tell this to Sai, because Sai would understand, even if he
was a bastard, most of the times. But soon, even Sai started to join
the flow of people feeling, losing, loving. And she couldn't hate him
for that, because he was finally human, and Sakura, like a
mother-teacher-sister-friend, was proud.

People were happy, people moved on, and Sakura moved on with them. She just had no clue where to she was moving, exactly.

So
three years passed. She had friends. She had her job. She had no
purpose. She should've been happy, but for some reason, that happiness
didn't feel complete. Something was missing. Associating that something
with lack of adventure, Sakura asked the Hokage to send her on the
longest mission she could think of, elsewhere.

So two days after the notes from a stranger from her past arrived, Sakura crossed the gates of Konoha, with hopes of grandeur.

-----

In
a small village in the country of Watterfall, the only thing remotely
close to grandeur that Sakura could find was a damp restaurant that had
the cordiality of serving her a hot meal in the middle of the night.

"This
isn't what I asked for when I said 'grandeur'," Sakura complained to
the waitress, a plump lady she'd never met before in her life, but
whose motherly features made Sakura confide in her fully. She'd have
told that woman anything, from the date of her birth, to the exact
location of the tiny mole on her inner thigh, and it had absolutely
nothing to do with the sake she'd been served. Really.

"Some
tea, dear?" the lady asked, way too cheerful for someone who was
serving a soaking wet stranger in the middle of the freaking night.
But, she guessed, that's how Waterfall courtesy goes for you.

"Please,"
she answered, and went back to twisting her hair to get out the surplus
of water. If it hadn't rained, Sakura would've arrived at her
destination on time. Of course, the advantage of being sent on a
diplomatic mission was that she could take her sweet time in getting
there. "Should've asked for an escort," she muttered to the glass. But
who could she ask for, that was sane and serious enough to not start
bitching in the middle of Sakura's diplomatic discussions with the Kage
of Waterfall? No-one. Diplomatic life sucked, or at least that was what
Temari had told her. At the exact moment, Sakura couldn't agree more.

Then the food arrived. "Thank god for diplomatic missions."

"Would you like a room to be set for you, dear?" the lady asked, refilling her glass with sake.

"You have rooms?"

"Just above the restaurant," was the answer, topped with a look of 'and you call yourself a ninja, not noticing that?'.

Something, Sakura thought, was suspicious. And then she thought no more.

-----

Hours
later, she woke up with a really, really bad headache, from being
drugged, drunk, knocked unconscious by a sweet looking plump lady, and
having a hangover. But at least she woke up in a comfortable bed, and
that, she was a bit grateful for. Of course, there was the issue of
being tied up and all, but…

"What the shit?" she said, suddenly wide awake.

"You
know, I thought they'd trained you better, princess," came the answer,
an infuriating, drawl of a voice. "Weren't you supposed to be good at
genjutsu? That henge was D-ranked."

"What, now you've read my
files, too, you stalker?" she snapped, glaring at him as she struggled
against the bonds. Either there was something about the bonds, or she
was still groggy, but as soon as she was free of them, she'd kick his
ass so hard his mother would feel it.

"Stalker is such a harsh word to call me, when I so nicely gave you food and shelter," he said.

"Untie me. And show your face."

"Why?"

"So I can kick it."

"Still
as violent as the last time, then. I'm pleased, yeah," he said, and
seconds later, he was near the bed, and she saw him. Three years had
passed since they'd last seen each other, and Sakura's first reaction
was:

"Your hair's grown back."

"That was lame, yeah. Could've said something more profound," he dryly noted.

"I'll
show you profound once you untie me and I let your nose meet my fist.
It'll be wonderfully profound. I'll have you waxing poetics from it, I
promise."

"I prefer you tied," he answered, smiling.

Sakura
made a noise that sounded like a growl, and slumped back on the bed,
watching him closely. He looked better than how she'd last seen him.
But anything looked better than how she'd last seen him. His skin was
back to normal, a few scars, here and there, and his hair was long
again. Great. The Akatsuki she'd revived was in full health agai—

Wait. "Where's your cloak?" she asked.

He
looked at her strangely, not quite understanding what the hell she
meant. And then it clicked. The Akatsuki cloak. "Probably on the loser
that had to re-emplace me, I guess," he answered with a shrug.

"What?"

"What are we, slow today? I quit the Akatsuki, yeah."

"And I should believe you, because…"

"Have
I come after your fox-friend lately? Did you see me in the final battle
against the Akatsuki? No. Believe whatever you want, yeah."

"…why?"
Sakura had been taught a valuable lesson about teammates and origins
once: if you have a team, you stick with it till the end. Obviously,
Deidara hadn't considered the Akatsuki as his team, but. Still.

"Three
years ago, yeah. They though I was dead, but thanks to you, I wasn't.
Didn't feel like returning, anyway. It's not like I joined willingly."

"So…" What did one say to one's former enemy, when one's former enemy wasn't an enemy anymore?

"Tch,
do try to not look so surprised, yeah? I was given a new chance to live
for my art, so I took it." He sat down next to her on the bed, and
leaned down. "All thanks to you, yeah."

"Is this your idea of showing gratitude? Because it sucks."

His brow furrowed and he pulled again with a slight growl. "What is you problem, hmm? I'm not even your enemy anymore and you're acting like a—"

"Finish that phrase and I'll kill you."

"Have
you considered taking drugs for that temper? They'd help a lot, yeah.
Be a bit nicer, I'm trying to express my gratitude here."

"What the hell? By tying me up to a bed?!"

"I take it you don't like my idea of a date, then?"

"I hate you. Untie me."

"Not
quite yet, princess. We haven't seen the show yet. I brought you here
for a reason, you know?" he said, giving her an ominous grin.

"Show?"

"Let
me explain something, Sakura. I'm a firm believer that you should give
as much as you receive, yeah. And three years ago, you rescued me from
death, so I didn't kill you. However, I'm still in debt to you. See,
you offered me such a great display of your destructive art, that I
feel like I must repay the favour."

Oh shit. He was
going to explode her. Inwardly, Sakura gave out a groan. She just had a
talent to pick and save the mentally deranged ones, didn't she? "You
know, just flowers would've been enough, seriously," she tried to
convince him, showing off a small smile.

"I know. I brought
you flowers," he said, grinning, dangerously close to her face. He
opened up one palm, and from the—ew, were those mouths on his hand?—mouth
on his hand, she could see three small sakura blossoms made of clay.
They would've been pretty. If they hadn't been bombs.

He smirked, and pressed a finger
over her lips, effectively shutting her up. "Are you afraid of death,
Sakura?" She gave him a look of 'DUH, idiot', and he chuckled, amused.
"I won't kill you, yeah. But I promised you a show, so…a show you'll
have. Watch closely, yeah."

He sat up from the bed, and
disappeared from the room. She called his name frantically for a few
minutes, hoping to gods he wouldn't explode the house with her in it,
because she would so haunt him as a ghost, and she'd be an annoying
ghost, too.

And then it began again.

The blinding
light, the heat, the wind, the boom. From her place on the bed, she saw
perfectly outside the window, and what she saw, was beautiful. In a
completely insane, 'oh look at that pretty fire, let's not get burned
by it' way. Another explosion. Another. Up to five explosions shook the
forest in Waterfall country, and Sakura could only watch.

What
had she gotten herself into? Who was this crazy guy? Why the hell was
he showing so much interest in her? And what the hell was with the
explosions thing? Finally, they ended. She kept on watching the view
outside the window, her breath shallow from the surprise, the
amazement, and the overwhelming feelings. She heard him reappear too
late, only growing aware of his presence when he was beside her, his
hand brushing over her cheek, and his mouth near her ear.

"That's exactly
the reaction I wanted to get from you, yeah," he whispered, and she
could feel his smirk rather than see it. "Till the next time,
princess." Another hit to a pressure point, and Sakura was back to
sleep.

When she woke up, the bounds were gone, and the room was
empty. The forest behind the restaurant was gone too, and the smell of
burned wood persisted in the air. It was beautiful.

And she was as insane as him for thinking that way.

-----

In
the end, Sakura went on the way and did her duty, and since then Konoha
and Waterfall have been in good graces. When she'd returned back home,
three months had passed, and things were, yet again, different.

Somewhere
along her way to find grandeur, or at least a further purpose in life,
she'd lost the little contact she had had with her friends. Deep down,
she knew she should've been angry as hell when they'd started to
exclude her of their group, but Sakura had been so happy to see them
happy, that she'd relented. Somewhere along the road, Sai told her to
stop putting others before herself. She'd kicked him for being so
damned right.

When Sakura had finished giving Tsunade her
reports, when she'd finished her awkwardly quiet lunch with Naruto,
Sasuke and Sai, she returned home. There was another letter in her
mailbox, but this one wasn't from the lunatic. This one was creamy
white, with lavender, and words like 'the pleasure of inviting you to'
and 'Uchiha Sasuke and Yamanako Ino' and, worst of all, 'wedding'. Well. That explained why the lunch had been so awkward.

-----

Two
weeks later, Sakura attended the first wedding in her life. Sadly,
tragically, and whatnot, it was not her own. She wasn't the bride
facing Sasuke. Sitting in the front row and watching Ino and Sasuke
exchange vows, Sakura had an epiphany. She didn't want to be Sasuke's bride.

She didn't want to be a bride.

She
wanted something more, something different. Not a wedding, or children,
but something equally beautiful. Something…explosive.

She
wanted change. She desperately needed it. And she needed to get out of
that place, get out of her pink frilly dress, get into the good old
medic uniform, and just. Go. That would've made her happy. That
would've made her happy.

But it would've ruined Ino's
happy day. And she couldn't do that to her friend, even if the
friendship had dwindled. Vaguely, she wondered if this was how Kakashi
had felt when he'd been left alone in the world, surrounded by ghosts
of his past. The only difference was that her ghosts were still alive.

The wedding was beautiful. Sakura felt like screaming all the way through.

-----

"Why is the cake pink?" she idly asked Naruto in a hushed whisper, three hours later, at the reception party.

"I think Ino likes it. Tastes good," Naruto answered.

"…she picked this on purpose."

"Huh?"

"Look at it, Naruto. It's pink
cake, dammit. It's like a wide declaration of 'ha ha you lost,
Sakura'," she snapped, pushing the plate under his nose. "It's sweet,
and pink, and I swear there was a flower decoration on it earlier."

Naruto
fretted a bit under her angry gaze, rubbing his neck and shrugging in
indifference. Sakura scowled, and settled for glaring at the
preposterous dessert. "Maa, Sakura-chan…" the boy started, a bit later.
"You're not still…in love with him, are you?"

Sakura's head
snapped up at the same time as the metaphorical knife plunged into her
heart. "No," she answered in a tiny voice. "No, of course not," she
tried again, her voice louder. "All forgotten now, yep."

Naruto
gave her an analysing look, before he smiled. "Just checking, you know?
Wouldn't want you to be unhappy, Sakura-chan. So you gotta let go of
Sasuke-teme, you know?"

"I know." After a pause, she added. "You want me to be happy, Naruto?"

"Of course," he answered, as if it should've been obvious. And it should have.

"What
if…what if my path to happiness leads me away from you guys, though?
What if I can't find happiness here, and I have to leave?"

The
man paused, looking lost in deep thought, before answering: "Whatever
makes you happy, Sakura-chan. I meant it. Plus, if you move far away,
I'll visit, I promise."

She placed her plate on the table, and
dragged him towards her, hugging the boy tightly. "Thank you," she
whispered, feeling really, honestly, grateful.

"What are
friends for, right?" he said, rubbing her head in that annoying
brotherly way she loved. "I'm gonna go see if Hinata-chan wants to
dance. Will you be fine here?"

"Sure," she answered, pulling
back from the hug. "Go," she said, and waved at him as he left. She'd
been wrong to think Naruto didn't include her in his group of friends
anymore. Dreadfully, horribly wrong. Naruto would have been there for
her, always. So who had been distancing themselves, then, if not her?
She'd placed the gap that was between her teammates and her there.
She'd been the one to run away. She' been the one wanting change.

And
painfully, she still wanted it. She loved the three of them dearly, but
at times like these, she wanted some escape. Something to remind her
she was alive. She wanted to live. With a last look of disgust towards
the cake, she pushed the plate away. "Hate cake, anyway."

"Would you like to dance?"

Sakura
looked up, her eyes following the hand held out in front of her. A man
in his mid-twenties was standing in front of her, black hair ruffled
slightly by the wind, and a shining smile on his face. He had a boyish
looking face. And he was asking her to dance. Sakura thought for a
moment, why the hell not? "Sure," she said, and place her hand in the
man's own, letting him help her up and towards the dance floor. She
vaguely recalled seeing Naruto give her a thumbs up, before being swept
into a slow dance by the stranger.

"You looked sad and
desperate back there," the man whispered, somehow making his voice
heard over the sensuous strings of the song. His hands were sure,
steady on the middle of her back, one hand in hers. His grip was
steady, formal, and yet there was something about it that made it feel bold. She couldn't explain it.

Sakura looked up into blue eyes, and blushed slightly. "You must've seen wrong."

He
smirked faintly, before twirling her around once, this time pulling her
closer once the pirouette was over. Now his chest was pressed against
hers (deliciously so), and he was leaning down to whisper something in
her ear. "You're not fooling me."

"You hardly know me," she replied, coldly.

He chuckled warmly into her ear, before pulling back and showing her a deadly familiar grin. "You'd be surprised at how well I know you, princess."

Well.
Shit. "Deidara," she bristled angrily, her voice kept down to a
whisper. She knew that if she revealed his identity, several things
would happen: 1. there would be a fight, 2. Ino's wedding would be
ruined, 3. people would end up dead or exploded. So she settle for the
next best thing. Gripping his hand hard, she growled, "What the fuck
are you doing here?"

"Dancing," he answered, as if it were the
most normal thing to answer, and as if her hands were not breaking a
few bones at that moment. "And you?"

"Don't be so damn--ugh!"

"I can't guarantee anything, but I'll try," he answered cockily, before spinning them both on the dance floor.

"Why are you here?" she asked again, wishing she could access the senbon in her cleavage.

"I heard there was a wedding, and came in case you didn't have a date."

"Will
you stop being so damn arrogant? If you're here to ruin the wedding, I
swear I'll kill you, revive you, and kill you again," she growled.

"Relax,
yeah? I'm not here to kill anyone. Though," he said, leaning in until
their noses touched. "I will, if you tell anyone who I am." At her
surprised look, he chuckled and defiantly poked her nose with his
tongue before pulling back. "I'm here for you."

"Why?" she
asked, trying to subtly wipe her nose of his bad, bad touch. "What use
am I to you, anyway? I already saw your art, we're even. You should've
stopped this shi—"

"Tsk. Sakura…try to deny that you don't like this, yeah. I dare
you to," he whispered, his tone serious yet teasing, his mouth right
next to her ear. "Try to convince yourself that your heart doesn't beat
faster when I'm near. Deny that you don't like the danger. Deny that
you don't want more."

"Course,
yeah. I'm trying to seduce you here, and you're making it hard." He
grinned boldly. "Can't say I'm not liking the chase, though."

"Wait, hold on, you're trying to seduce me? Why?" she blurted out, hardly aware that a second song had started, until he picked up the pace.

"And
why not?" he asked, shrugging slightly. "I'm not interested in just
explosions, you know? Have you ever seen an artist when they're
obsessed, Sakura? They go at unimaginable lengths to reach that
obsession."

"I'm your obsession?"

He smiled, and she
wished he wasn't hidden behind a henge, because the smile was honest,
and slightly sad, and maybe a bit melancholic, and damn. It would've
looked beautiful on his real face. "Something like that, yeah," he
answered. Then he leaned in, and pressed his lips over hers briefly,
less than a second, fleeting. "Beautiful," he whispered, his lips still
hovering over hers.

What was so beautiful, she never found
out. He was gone before she could open her eyes. Sakura stood still in
the middle of the dance floor, a hand raised to her lips. Nothing of
him lingered. He was gone. Fleeting.

Just like his art.

----

He
was slowly becoming a constant. Not a huge constant, but a constant
nonetheless. So maybe he wasn't there with established frequency, and
sometimes it took three months, a week, half a year, four weeks, a day,
for him to establish some sort of contact, but at least he seemed to be
there when she needed it. In a way, that scared her a lot. In a way,
she was grateful.

When Sasuke's first child was born, Sakura
took the first mission she could get her hands on, and retreated behind
that perfect mask of work and duty. In the middle of that mission,
while enjoying a cup of tea in a quiet part of the forest, he appeared.
This time, there was no fight. This time, he sat down, and she allowed
him to, because she'd been hurting, or feeling strangely lost after the
news of Ino and Sasuke's child. So they sat for a few hours, and
somewhere in the middle, Sakura poured him some tea. He commented on
how strange it was that she carried tea with her, of all things. She
told him to shut up and drink.

They talked then, for hours.
Sakura was taking a break, anyway, so she didn't care if she was late.
There was nowhere for her to be late, anyway, since she was returning
from her mission. So she took that break from reality, and pretended
they were just a man and a woman sharing tea in the middle of the
forest, and talking until they had nothing left to talk about. And when
the talk as over, he smiled at her, and left with a wave.

The
things she'd learned that time about him, were many. Or as much as one
can learn in three hours, fifteen minutes and fourty-five seconds—not
that she'd counted.

The time after that, she'd just lost all
her squad members in an S-class mission. Her hands still reeked of
blood, and were red like blood, when Sakura picked herself up and ran
from the battlefield, from the death, and the loss, and the
incompetence. He found her—or maybe followed her—near the river,
scrubbing her hands furiously in the freezing water. She didn't react
when he materialized behind her, and when he said he could've killed
her easily, had he been an enemy, she'd quietly answered "But you're
not one." Something changed in Sakura in that battle, where she was the
only one to survive the massacre. Something broke.

So when
Deidara kneeled besides her on the river-bank, and took one of her
hands in between hers, she looked up with a blank stare, and asked:
"Make me feel something before I lose myself." The mouths on his hands
opened and kissed the front and back of her hand. She sucked in air
through her parted lips.

And then he was kissing her. He was
kissing her, and kissing her, with lips moulding together, teeth
clashing, tongues battling wildly. It wasn't a dance, it wasn't chaste,
and it wasn't like any kiss Sakura had ever experienced. It was better.
It was a frenzy of lips, tongues, teeth; of kisses, nips, and heavy
panting. They didn't pull away for twenty minutes, and when he finally
pulled back from her mouth, she realised that somehow, in the middle of
it, she'd ended up lain against the forest floor, with him above her,
entangled around her.

This is dangerous, her eyes seemed to say. He must have agreed, because two moments later, he was gone, again.

She
wouldn't hear or see him in another six months. Ironically, the next
time would be on her birthday, when again an envelope appeared
mysteriously, this time on her bed. There was a post-card, but what
caught her attention was the small figurine of clay attached. It was them,
on the forest floor, two abstract people so entangled that they looked
like one being. Sakura kept it on the shelf in her room, grateful for
the simple words he'd written on the card: 'Normal clay'.

Two
days later, she would leave on a mission. And hour after her departure,
the clay figurine would explode, and the post-card would split into two
parts, revealing a secret message written in invisible ink: 'Beauty should be fleeting'. Sakura wouldn't see either, because her mother would clean her room the following day.

-----

Five
years passed since the first time, since she'd healed him. Sakura was
now twenty years old, and recently promoted to Jounin. Team Kakashi had
been dissolved, because Sai and Sasuke were back in ANBU, and Naruto
was too busy with his duties as a Hokage. Sakura alternated between
missions, and work at the hospital, and imminently, among the routine,
she began to have that feeling of emptiness. That need to escape. To
let go. To be something better. Greater.

The mission she chose
had been fairly simple. Infiltrating the base of the crime-lord hadn't
been hard, because apparently minions nowadays came with
extreme-weakness to genjutsu. Not even getting to the man's rooms had
been tough, because apparently guards those days came with a weak
resistance to poison darts. Once inside the room, Sakura settled to
looking for the scrolls she needed, while thinking about how her life
had gone down the drain lately. Vaguely, she reflected that a certain
psychotic madman could maybe, make her feel better.

And of course, that was like a sign for the gods to act.

"Didn't
they teach you stealing is bad?" came a familiar voice from behind her.
Sakura was quick, the kunai flying towards him before she could realise
who he was. Luckily, it only hit the door of the closet he'd been
hiding in. "Tsk."

She turned around fully, and placed her hands on her hips. "I thought you'd have came out of the closet by now."

"Funny,
yeah," he drawled, leaning back against the wall behind him.
Apparently, the crime-lord just loved having extremely wide, spacious
closets. Almost like small rooms. "Missed me, princess?" he asked.

"No," she answered. Yes, she meant.

"I think you have, yeah," he replied in a low voice. Raising a hand, he beckoned him towards him. "Come here, Sakura."

"Why?"
she asked. Her legs were moving on their own accord, though, leading
her to him, to the closet, to his arms. "Why are you always here when I
want you to be?" she demanded, stopping two feet in front of him.

"Because
I'm your guardian angel, princess," he replied, smiling softly. His
hand circled around her wrist, and pulled her brusquely against him.
Her chest collided with him, and he spun them around, pushing her back
against the wall of the closet. "I don't know either, yeah. I just…feel
like I should be. Crazy shit, huh?"

"No kidding," she answered, not moving from her spot. "What will you do now?"

"Have you," he replied, as if it were the most natural thing to say, ever.

"Here? In a closet?
Are you mad?" she asked. Meanwhile, her hands, the traitors, had slid
under his shirt. They both hissed at the feeling of cold hands against
hot skin.

"Mmmmyes, right here," he murmured, leaning down to
lick the shell of her ear. "We both need this," he whispered, and it
sounded like a prayer.

"Will you leave afterwards?" she asked,
reaching behind him to pull the door to the closet shut. Darkness
enveloped her, and the sound of their harsh breathing was the only
thing heard for a moment.

"Yes," he finally answered, before
covering her mouth with his. It was wonderful, and lazy, and untamed.
His tongue wasted no time in sliding past her parted lips and rolling
around hers. His hands slid under her shirt, bloodline acting up. His
left hand travelled up to rest under her breast, the tongue of that
mouth licking the skin it caught in its path. His right hand rounded
her waist, slipping under her medic-nin skirt, and above her shorts,
right over her ass. He pulled her closer, while his lips nipped at her
bottom lip, Sakura letting out whimpers of pleasure. "Wanted this for
too long, yeah," he murmured against her lips.

"Why do you keep
running away, then?" she asked, opening her eyes to look at him. He
looked beautiful. Even if she could hardly see inside the closet, she
knew he looked beautiful.

"Because, Sakura, every moment near
you is…beautiful, now. And to me, beauty should be fleeting. If I
didn't leave, I'd have to turn you into my work of art, yeah. And I'm a
bit too selfish, with you, to do that," he explained, his lips
fluttering over her face, forehead, eyes, nose, lips again. Lips
against lips, that was how it should've always been. "Now be quiet," he
ordered, pleaded.

She spoke no more, and neither did he. Actions took over words, and it was perfect. Even if it was inside a closet.

Deidara's
lips—the ones on his face—left her mouth, trailing kisses down her
neck, to her collarbone. Meanwhile, his hands unzipped her top, pushing
it out of the way, before moving down south. His mouth moved again,
tongue swirling around her left nipple, making her arch and stick her
knuckles in her mouth to keep her from crying out loud. He licked her
nipple until it was hard, before clamping his mouth around it, while
one hand covered her neglected breast, the mouth on it mimicking the
first. He suckled, and licked, and nipped at her breasts until she was
whimpering from need, her hands thread in his hair, pulling him closer,
and her back arched.

He pulled away enough to look up at her,
or at least she thought he was doing that. "Wish I had a light to see
you now, yeah," he murmured, before his tongue boldly ran over her
nipple again.

"Nnnhh," was her only answer, her grip on his
hair tighter. Somewhere along that line, he'd ended up on his knees in
front of her. One hand was left teasing her breast while the other
lifted her right leg, and placed it over his shoulder.

"One
day, we'll have to do this in a bed, yeah," he murmured, his hands
leaving her completely only to hook under her shorts and panties and
pull them down her legs. He brought her leg back up over his shoulder,
and kissed her inner thigh. "I wanna see you the next time." His tongue
licked a path to her knee, where he grinned against her skin before
biting the skin there.

"Oh gods!" was her reaction, knees buckling slightly.

"I prefer Deidara, yeah," he replied, before running his tongue up her thigh. "Describe what I'm touching, Sakura. Be my eyes."

"Nnnhh…th-the…"
Well, she clearly couldn't, and the bastard knew it. Too lost in the
lust meddling with her brain, she couldn't form any words, let alone
describe herself.

"Do it or I'll stop," he warned.

"There's
a mole an inch above from where your mouth is," she quickly blurted
out, saying the first thing to come to mind. When, a second later, his
mouth was on that spot, where her mole was, she was so grateful she'd
mentioned it. "P-Please," she gasped out.

"I'm not gonna hurry," he said, scraping his teeth over her hipbone and making her moan softly.

"We're…in a fucking…closet, dammit…of a crime-lord, might I aaaaaaahhh—add."

"Try something more convincing, yeah," he said, grinning against her skin, before his head disappeared between her thighs.

"Deidara," she moaned, as soon as she felt his tongue, skilfully spreading her wet folds, giving her one lick, before pulling away.

"Want me to stop, hmm?" he asked, teasingly licking her again.

"No,"
she answered, deciding that fuck, she needed this. Screw the fact that
they were in a closet. If anyone dared walk in on them, she'd kill
them. Unless Deidara got to them first. He probably had explosives laid
about the room.

To be completely honest, Sakura had always
found explosions to be something beautiful to watch from a safe
distance. She wasn't sure this qualified as a safe distance, but it was
an explosion. Maybe it didn't wipe out entire cities, but it destroyed.
It took whatever was in its path, and the only thing in its
destructive, burning path, was her.

His mouth moved again,
pressing kisses to her wet core, teeth scraping over her clit before
his tongue flickered it once. She mumbled something incoherent, and
twisted her fingers in his hair. Lazily, his tongue licked her clit
while he slipped two fingers inside of her, pumping them in and out at
a steady pace, rhythmic. Ten pumps, before he stopped, fingers inside
her; twisting his hand until his palm was towards the sky, her moved
his fingers inside her in a beckoning movement, rubbing over her g-spot
over, and over, until she could help it anymore—and then he stopped,
and resumed the process. Again, and again, as if they had all the time
in the world, as if they weren't in someone else's closet, as if—oh,
who cared anymore.

"Want…Deidara, please…" she mumbled incoherently, grinding her hips against his hand.

"Yeah?" he murmured, teeth brushing over her clit again.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed, buckling again.

"Mmmhmm,
eventually." Eventually, his fingers settled for rubbing against her
g-spot, tongue teasing her clit, over and over, until she really couldn't stop herself, and she arched—

"Deidara!"

—silently
crying his name, back snapping into an arch, before shudders and
whimpers took over, and she rode the wave of her orgasm, while he
licked her clean, and pulled himself up from the floor.

"Really
gotta do this again with lights, yeah," he said, grinning widely—she
could see his teeth—before crashing his mouth against hers in a kiss
that tasted like sex, and lust, and—god, she needed more.

Her
hands moved this time, fingers pulling at the string of his pants
before pushing them down to below his buttocks, together with his
underwear. One hand slipped under his shirt, nails scraping over a
nipple, while the other wrapped around his cock and gave it one, firm
stroke.

"Fuck," he groaned against her lips.

"Would've
gotten there ages ago, but you insist on being slow," she said, before
his mouth grabbed hers in another passionate kiss.

"Want you now," he gasped out against her lips, his hands travelling down to the back of her legs.

"Take me, then," she said, defiantly.

He
did. His hands gripped her legs, pushing her up against the wall of the
closet, pulling her legs up and settling them around his waist. With
the hand she had wrapped around his length, she positioned him at her
entrance, and pressed one fleeting, beautiful kiss to his lips. "Now,"
she growled, and he slammed inside of her.

Thankfully, she
wasn't a virgin, or else that would've hurt. And it felt way too good
to let any pain filter through. "Gods," he groaned, hips moving to
thrust in and out of her quickly for a few moments, before settling a
rhythm.

"I…prefer…nnhhh—Sakura," she replied, laughing slightly.

"Cocky, yeah," he said, grinning before the hands wrapped around her legs opened their mouths and licked.

"Nhhhh—don't stop…" she gasped out, hands coming to wrap around his shoulders.

"Don't
plan to," he said, and didn't. His rhythm was brutal, because he slid
out slowly, and slammed inside quickly. It was torture, of the best
kind. Any other type of sex they'd had before this was insignificant,
however mindblowing it had been.

This was more. This was like his best explosions, condensed.

His
speed picked up soon, until he was thrusting into her relentlessly,
while she gasped, and moaned, and begged, and clutched. He switched one
hand from her legs to her breast, while he bent down to swipe her mouth
into another kiss. Her nails scratched the skin on his back slightly,
her back desperate to arch, but unable to.

"Deidara…" she mumbled against his lips, clenching her legs around his hips.

"Yeah?"

"Don't leave," she whispered.

He made a noise that sounded like a cry of something,
knees buckling slightly. But he didn't answer, opting for thrusting
into her with passion, wildness, lack of control, again, again, more
and more, until she was there again, until the earth under her
crumbled, and her world exploded behind her eyelids, and she saw white,
and warmth, and--gods, just like his explosions--blissfully
orgasmed. He wasn't late in following, a couple of more thrusts into
her tight core, and it was all it took to bring a psychotic, insane,
dangerous man to a state of abandon.

"Bang," Sakura breathed out, a minute later.

"Yeah," he agreed, panting softly. "Bang, indeed."

-----

Sakura
regretted a few things in her life. Having sex with Deidara in a dark
closet was not one of them. However, not fighting more and trying to
stop him from leaving, was.

At least this time, he didn't
leave her unconscious, and at least they parted after her mission was
over, in the forest. He did not take her again, though by the way his
fingers curled whenever he looked at her, he wanted to. But he must've
been fighting some superior force, obviously. Or against himself. She
wasn't sure.

But she was sure of one thing, though. As soon as
she had arrived in Konoha, as soon as Naruto noticed, surprised, that
she looked 'diferent, like…happier, but sad…did you do something with
your hair?', she knew. She had found her escape, her change, her
grandeur. And she would be a damned fool if she'd let it go.

"Naruto, I need to tell you a story," she said, and sat down, and spoke. If anyone could understand her, it would be Naruto.

She
knew it was wrong to be attached to a former Akatsuki member, a former
enemy, but, Sakura pointed out, in the life of a shinobi, the line
between enemies and allies was determined by a bag of coins; and to
their enemies, they were the bad guys, while to themselves, the enemies
were the bad guys. Moral etiquette was okay to know that killing was
bad, but necessary. But beyond that, they were all murderers there, and
no-one had the right to wear a crown or a halo. So Naruto understood.

Sakura,
at twenty years, filed in her resignation as a Konoha shinobi, and
required the permission to leave her village without being persecuted
like a missing-nin. Normally these types of processes took months, but
it helped to be the best friend of the Hokage.

So two days
later, Sakura'd been packed, and ready, and saying goodbye to her
friends and family. Of all of them, only Naruto knew the truth. The
rest thought she was retiring from the world of a shinobi, and probably
planning to work as something else. (That would depend on someone else.)

"So where are you going? What are your plans?" Sasuke asked.

"I don't know where I'm going," she answered. "But I have plans for grandeur."

"And you can't get those here?" Sai asked.

Sakura
smiled at him. She'd miss the bastard. She'd miss them all. Maybe she'd
return to visit one day. Maybe not. But she'd always have them in her
heart. "No. I must go out into the world to find them."

She didn't cry at that goodbye.

-----

It
took Sakura two months to find him, and when she did she was
half-tempted to punch his jaw in for eluding her so well. Instead, she
took a seat on the bench next to him.

"Nice view," she said, looking out to the ocean in front of them. "Could've picked somewhere closer to Fire."

He turned his head—god, he looked gorgeous—and gave her a grim look. "Why are you here, yeah?"

"Oh, well, you know, I heard the fish in this place is something you have
to try at least once in your lifetime," she answered, waving her hand
dismissively. At his pointed look, she cleared her throat and looked
away. "I am no longer a ninja of Konoha."

"What happened?"

"You did," she answered, turning her head to lock gazes with him.

"You're insane, yeah," he said, looking mildly grim.

"Look, idiot," she snapped, breaking the mood. "This is the first time I stalk you.
I don't care if you say yes or not, if we last for a short while, or
for forever, but I do know that you're my escape, Deidara. You're my
change, my…my grandeur, for God's sake. And I hope you'll be that for a
while longer. So please, give this a chance."

He looked at her
for a long time, taking in every detail. She held her breath until he
leaned in and kissed her lips softly. "If I end up blowing you up…"

"I'll
just haunt you in my afterlife," she finished for him. "I know you
think beauty should be fleeting, Deidara, but a relationship won't
always be beautiful. We'll fight, and bicker, and sometimes I'll get so
mad that I'll leave, and sometimes you'll get so mad that you'll blow
something up, and we'll have ups and downs. I know we'll pull through,
though, even if I'm sure you're going to make me mad about the weirdest
things, like how you leave clay all over the place, and the way you'll
take five hours in the bathroom to fix your hair every day—"

"So
what do you say?" she asked, grabbing his hands in hers. "Give this a
try? Or should I grab my bags and go back home? Will you be my escape?"
He opened his mouth to say something, but she clamped her hand over it.
"And before you answer, remember that I travelled for weeks, miles and
miles, and that a wrong answer might lead to your sudden death," she
finished with sobriety.

He grinned against her palm, before
pulling her hand away from his mouth, and kissing her, hard. Fifteen
minutes later, he pulled away, and said: "This time, I'll stay."

"Oh
good!" she exclaimed. "Hold on, let me put away these kunais here, and
we can—" He shut her up with another kiss, grinning against her lips
during all the time.

Maybe his answer hadn't been direct, and
maybe Sakura was right. Maybe they'd last for a short while, or for
forever. But he'd relented, and she? She could work with that.
Together, they could work with that, make that crazy, obsessive
relationship work. And if it didn't, well…she always had the kunais at
hand.

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